Continuing the countdown of my favorite 2021 movies…
Best Films of 2021
#9 – Flee
Nominated for an historic trifecta of Oscars — Animated Film, Foreign Film, and Documentary — director Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee is unlike anything I’ve seen before.
The film chronicles the troubled childhood of Amin (an alias), who fled both Afghanistan and Russia to escape a round robin of authoritarian regimes. Amin is telling his story for the first time, encouraged by his friend of 20+ years.
It took me until the first week of March 2022 to catch up with every 2021 film on my watchlist, but I did it. The last one I got in was multiple Oscar nominee Drive My Car, which was fine but in my view undeserving of the hype.
I felt that way about a lot of highly-praised 2021 films, including Dune, The Power of the Dog, Licorice Pizza and Passing.
But that doesn’t mean the year overall was a disappointment. On the contrary, I saw a ton of great movies and had to struggle to settle on a top ten. It pained me to leave deserving titles on the outside looking in, so let me pour one out for In the Heights, Zola, The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Last Duel and Mass.
It has now been 5,000 posts and nearly 14 years since I wrote my first Song of the Day entry back in July of 2008.
That post was about The Smiths’ ‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,’ a title I picked because I somehow knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I’ve chosen a cover of that song to mark today’s milestone.
Today’s random SOTD, ‘Wigwam,’ appeared on Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self Portrait, considered by many the worst release of his career.
The version posted today is from The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971), a compilation featuring alternate tracks from Self Portrait and its follow-up from the same year, the much better received New Morning.
The new tracks do away with excessive overdubs and correct other lamentable production decisions, unearthing the far more promising album buried beneath the original Self Portrait.
Continuing my personal 2021 Oscar rundown, today I’m focusing on the women I would recognize for Best Supporting Actress.
But first, as I’ve done all week, I’ll give a nod to five actresses who had a great shot of making the cut: Zazie Beetz (Nine Days), Caitriona Balfe (Belfast), Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter), Gaby Hoffman (C’mon, C’mon), and Martha Plimpton (Mass).
I initially had an even longer list of runners-up in what was a great year for this category.
Meet Me In Montauk 